


exoskeletons

by seeds_by_anonymous



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Spoilers, X-Files revival, X-Files season 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 06:32:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4380884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeds_by_anonymous/pseuds/seeds_by_anonymous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sunflower seeds and a stakeout. Nostalgia and smut. Please pardon all of it as my first fan-fiction.</p><p>TIMEFRAME: Pre-coital to post-coital. (Not exactly kidding.) </p><p>                  2016. </p><p>                  [BEWARE OF SOME INCOPORATED OFFICIAL AND UNOFFICIAL SPOILERS FOR X-FILES SEASON 10. Allusions to episodes<br/>from seasons 1-9, Fight the Future, and I Want to Believe.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	exoskeletons

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: All characters and references belong to the bigwigs and gluttons at 20th Century Fox. This was written with all due respect to the professionals of Ten Thirteen: Darin Morgan, Glen Morgan, James Wong, David Duchovny, and Vince Gilligan especially. My deepest gratitude to their inspiring creativity. And to Gillian Anderson for being the constant light in an often dark world. My pre-emptively bitter respect goes out to X-Files creator Chris Carter – thanks for so much, and no thanks for so little.

Another pitch-black night. Another rental car. Another middle of nowhere. 

Déjà vu all over again. Back at the beginning, only now she feels every second of the 23 years passed in her bones. Another crack of a shell between his teeth breaks into her weary thoughts, bringing her back to her ever-strange reality. 

“Sunflower seed?” Mulder rattles the bag of salty kernels under her nose. 

“No, thank you.” She looks around at the casings scattered about on his lap and on the floor, “And I won’t be the one cleaning the remains from this car before returning it either.” 

“And this whole time, I was convinced your obsessive neatness and this oral compulsion of mine are yin and yang as far as personality disorders go.” 

“In your dreams, Mulder.” She returns her attention back to the autopsy reports in hand. “There is no further evidence here that suggests what killed these two people is an animal. No tracks, no prints… The bacteria in the saliva found in the bite marks clearly indicate that it’s a man who is responsible. Maybe a rabid man, but a man nonetheless.” 

“What about the fur? It was all over the victims and the crime scene... Besides, I didn’t say whatever did this wasn’t man. It’s part man. Part scavenger. Except these two latest murders has me thinking that its taste may be elevating from carcasses to fresh meat.” 

“The previous grave desecrations could be the work of a death fetishist, whose urges are escalating…” she drifts into another unwanted memory, remembering too clearly the scent of her jasmine shampoo infused with the sour smell of death. 

“Hey…” Mulder rests his salt-covered fingers on her left thigh, powdering her pristine black suit and marking her with yet more of him. He assures her tenderly, “I don’t think it’s that, Scully. Fetishists don’t usually consume their victims.” 

She remains silent, staring at the large hand on her leg, taking comfort from its weight and warmth. 

Mulder continues, hoping to distract her from the past with his reliable lunacy. “The fur, the monthly attacks… The killer’s appetite being in perfect sync with the lunar cycle. I think what we have here is a lycanthrope, better known as…” 

“Werewolves don’t exist, Mulder.” Scully returns to the present, cutting in with her just-as-reliable scientific certainty and incredulity. “Is that why we’re really out here? Staking out a werewolf? In a state park? In the middle of the night?”

“Werewolves are shapeshifters. Men transforming themselves into another being, another form, another creature. We’ve seen this before. Jeremiah Smith, the alien bounty hunter…” He grins before adding, “And your personal favorite, superstar shapeshifter Eddie Van Blund-ht.” 

That earns him her trademark glare - adorable crease between her brows, pursed lips and all – features that only grew more distinguished and deeper with her years. Mulder chuckles in relief at this return to normalcy, their normalcy. 

Scully ignores his misplaced jubilance. “In any case, I’ll have the lab run an antibody test for the rabies virus tomorrow morning, and see if we can also identify that fur. It’s possible the two hikers had a dog with them, or that the bodies attracted other predators after they were killed. ” 

“Good, okay.” But he carries on, “What I’m just trying to say is that shapeshifting is not that different from camouflaging. Moths, lizards, octopus, snow leopards – nature is replete with examples. In a changing climate, a changing Earth… On the verge of a sixth extinction, shapeshifters may be the fittest of us all. Physical transformation is the ultimate survival skill.” 

Mulder pauses to take another seed between his teeth, cracking and pulling the seed out with expertise. 

“So problem solved then. All we need to do to survive an alien invasion is to get bit by a werewolf. We could then transform ourselves into whatever we need in order to adapt to the new world. How convenient.” Scully jests before charging, “You’re cheating with your hypothesis, Mulder. Shapeshifting is just another way of saying ‘all of the above.’ Werewolves are just folklore.” 

He huffs at her accusation, “It’s not cheating, Scully. The scientific method just never quite found an efficient way to test theories that are more expansive.” 

The next crack of a seed fails to drown out the growl of her stomach. 

“Are you sure you don’t want some food?” He again waves the bag of seeds at her. 

“That hardly counts as food. Contrary to what you believe, sunflower seeds aren’t an essential food group.” 

“You’re wrong. These –“ he shakes the bag again, “ – have saved my life on occasion. From Count Dracula of Texas.” 

“ _I_  – saved your ass, Mulder. I busted that drug-dealing pizza boy from your room –  _my_  room actually – while you were busy singing praises to Shaft,” she reminds him. 

Mulder balks at that memory before it suddenly becomes clear to him. “You don’t know how to eat these, do you?” 

“… What?” This time, she flinches at the accuracy of his accusation. 

“Eat one,” he challenges with a brilliant grin on his face. He smugly plucks the perfect seed from the bag and thrusts it in her face. 

She gingerly takes it, hesitating, “ _This_ , is not a necessary survival skill. There are thousands of more effective ways to acquire nutrition.” 

“Just eat it, Scully.” 

Watching her position the seed between her teeth, Mulder’s eagerness to validate his allegation quickly finds an entirely different motivation. His eyes flicker from her luscious pink lips to her defiant blue glare. It’s been too long and his enthusiasm runs straight to his groin. 

When the delicate shell breaks with the seed still firmly encased, she has the humility to look genuinely heartbroken. All doe-eyed and again… that pout of hers. 

Mulder laughs, “You’re biting too hard.” He leans over the center console and presses his lips to her elegant porcelain neck. “Like this,” he nips ever so gently, as if she would break too from the tug of his front teeth. 

The seed slips carelessly from her fingers as she is instantly and completely disarmed. A sigh escapes as his pecks turn into hot kisses, leaving a wet trail down to her collarbone. Grasping his soft brown hair with one hand, Scully lifts him by his defined chin to her lips with her other. Their open mouths finally meet with a crushing hunger, their tongues desperately reaching to relearn the other’s depths. 

The need for air eventually forces them apart, but their foreheads still find their rest against each other. 

“Scully...” Mulder breathes her in as he places a kiss on her perfect aquiline nose, remembering how it moves up and down, especially when she launches excitedly into a scientific defense. He kisses her cheekbones that protrude ever so proudly as a show of her resilience. He kisses her eyelids that have struggled to withhold as many tears as they have leaked. He holds her face and searches her big wet eyes to see if he could still find himself in them. “I missed you so much… I missed this.” He returns to her lips with another deep kiss, “I missed us.” 

Still looking for words, Scully loses herself in his full lips once more as if she could find them there. The them she had given up in her vengeance. 

When the expiration date had expired, it was one deception too many. It was as if the fading fire of her hair had seeped inward, inflaming her collection of disappointments, confusion, and regret. She needed to know if it was all worth it. If giving up their son was worth anything – anything at all – because she needed it to. 

The ruse was her idea – to lure an explanation from the men who deceived them, to be the spy they thought she was 23 years ago. But neither she nor Mulder are natural-born liars, and their adapted skill came at a cost and with too many risks appended. 

When Sveta’s car was bombed a few months ago, Mulder feared a similar fate for Scully. She had grown more and more distant during their three years living apart and he was already losing her to their own lies. During their separation, Scully held onto her sanity by the thread of her love for medicine, while Mulder immersed himself in his search for the elusive and all too familiar insanity. When They took her bait, what began as a fake split created fissures that were very real. The evening she came home to actually use the vacuum to clean instead of to shroud their talking and fucking from ever-prying ears, he was hurt – betrayed in their betraying. 

Maybe that too was her unconscious intention. Maybe she needed to see if she could still live as her own person. Maybe there had been one ditch too many and it was her turn now. She came and went with her mask left on, keeping him out along with the rest of the world. 

Mulder believes the men in shadows have always overestimated him by the power of his two fathers; but they severely underestimate the women in his life – his sister’s innocence, his mother’s guilt, and Scully. Oh, Scully. Her five feet three inches may be the best trick of all. Once hidden beneath big suits, big science, and an even bigger morality, she transformed any wide-eyed naivety she had into a fierce faith in the truth – and at one time, in him too. 

He always knew he would not win playing Their game in a way not his own. He remembers the ways of men in dark cars who promise a cure only to explode it all in your face a minute later. He pled with Skinner to pull strings so they could reunite under a professional pretext, as partners again in the Bureau. Whether They will continue to buy it or not, they don’t yet know – but at least Scully was now safely back within reach. 

“Should we be doing this again? And here?” She pulls away from him, uncertain if she could stop again if they start. One life takes too much effort to maintain, much less two. 

“Yes.  _This_ , Scully – ” he gestures between them, “this is the only thing that still seems right, that has always been right.” 

Some time ago, and perhaps somewhere deep within her even now, she knows this too. He brushes back the lock of hair veiling the side of her face, wordlessly asking for reentry back into her world in spite of its turmoil. She answers with her clear-eyed gaze and softened face. 

He draws her in again, devouring her with a firm hand behind her neck. Unbuttoning her blouse with as much care as his desperation would allow, he clutches her breast through her bra, kneading her tension into pure lust. When Scully drags her well-manicured fingers down his blue shirt and over his sculpted chest, he hardens like cement. His hand quickly finds its way to undo her slacks, and cups her mound. 

“Mulderrr…” 

His practiced fingers slip underneath her panties – his thumb rubs her clit as two others thrust into her core. Pulsing into her to his knuckles, Mulder continues his assault on her lips and on her neck with his lips. She squirms against him, and gasps into his stubbled cheek, “Mulder…I want your cock.” 

With a lace-covered nipple in his mouth, he grunts in agreement. Dragging himself from her, he pants, “Meet… in the backseat.” 

She removes the rest of her clothes from jacket to heels with impressive speed, and flies out the car as he was still taking off his pants. 

“It’s locked!” 

As he scrambles for the switch to unlock the back, she had already scampered over to his side. Her hands braced against the passenger window glass and bowed at the waist, she turns to him and hisses “It’s fine! Just do it like this!”

When they first started their physical relationship, a request like that from Scully would have shocked him into ejaculation; but he soon realized that it just contradicted what he knew of her. He knew she wasn’t a prude, but he definitely puts her on a pedestal high above the women in his video collection, above all other women who were in his life, all men too. The Scully he uncovered was one of extremes – whether she runs sharply cold or passionately hot depends on how it aligns with her sense of justice. With him, she was always more than fair and somehow, he got a lot more than he deserved. 

“No, I want to see your face… See you when I fuck you,” he growls as he hovers over her petite frame to open the back door. “But first, I going to make you come with my mouth.” 

Flooded with a rush of heat, she clambers into the backseat. Ready on his knees just outside the door, he opens her thighs to him. He pierces her with his fingers again and finds her dripping with want. He runs his tongue up and down her slit, from clit to her anus. Gripping his head with both hands, Scully whimpers as he increases pressure and speed. Concentrating on her clit, Mulder sucks the small bundle of nerves into his drenched lips and grazes it with his teeth, and she is stunned into ecstasy. 

He licks her juices from his lips, savoring the taste of her he had been craving for months. He gently picks her up and shifts her further into the car as he gets in, closing the door behind him. Scully throws her arms around his neck and kisses him hard. 

“Mmmm… this mouth. I love this mouth.” She takes his lower lip between her teeth. “I think I love sunflower seeds too.” 

Mulder chortles with a shy pride and turns her, bringing them face-to-face with her straddling his lap. “So I was right then? It’s an essential food group?” 

“For us, it is.” 

Going back to nibbling her shoulder, her neck, and her ear, he recovers her long-absent giggle, and he feels as if he just revived the world. His triumphant beam turns into a groan when Scully rubs her slickened folds along his rock solid length. 

“Scullaayyy…” 

She poises herself over him, angling his shaft into her depths. As she sinks down onto him, the ridges of his cock slide tightly against and into her slick folds, completing them. 

They gasp, breaths withheld, pausing to recognize the reality of this long overdue corporeal reunion. When they finally brave another breath and a peek, they see the charged disarray of emotions reflected in the other’s eyes. 

“I love you,” he reminds her of the one thing he couldn’t stand to have her doubt. 

Thirty-three heartbeats later, she confesses, “I’m remembering.” 

Holding her face, caressing her cheek with his thumbs, his awkward nose nuzzling hers so full of grace – his ritual assures her of his understanding. At last, she dares to move again. 

Even if they have forgotten, their muscles recall their rhythm. She rocks and glides against his hips, steering them through waves of pleasure like the true daughter of a captain she is and always has been. 

Her cascading blaze of hair, her beautifully arched back, her swaying full breasts – Mulder reverently watches the woman who has never led him astray. Some time ago, he realized she is both his destination and his passage. Drawing circles with his hands on her hips, he coaxes her home, “Let go, Scully.” He grinds his pubic bone against her clit; hitting the spot, she goes rigid and comes like shattered steel. 

She falls, disintegrating into him. He catches what’s left of her in his arms, embracing her with the only certainty he has left. He rains kisses atop her dampened tresses, on her temples, her cheeks, her nose – and finally her lips again, passionately. Breaking to breathe, she smiles against his tan shoulder, rippling with muscle and flaring desire. 

Scully clenches his erection still throbbing within her, beckoning him to reach his own release. He doesn’t hold back. Hugging her tight against him, he jams his cock into her silken void once more. He thrusts with the frenzy amassed from their time apart. He pounds into her as if he could fuck down the walls she resurrected around her heart. With a roar, he erupts and fills her. 

For a long time, they remain still – relishing the minutes that are theirs, together. Being themselves again, they found their us again. 

She moves again when she has to, at the urging of that other basic need. Stretching, she grabs the abandoned bag of seeds, happily claiming them as her “post-coital snack.” 

He laughs and slaps her butt playfully as she rejoins him in the back. He studies her, amused as she seductively takes a seed between her teeth. The shell splits into perfect halves; she plucks out her prize with a surgeon’s nimble finger and holds it up to his gaping mouth. 

“I’m a quick learner,” she explains with her sly smile, sapphire eyes twinkling. 

He is questioning everything. Sunflower seeds. Baseball… Hell, maybe she even played in the Major League. She  _did_  grow up with two brothers. With Scully, improbable is always possible. 

Only when she adds with a wink, “And I also have the best Indian Guide” does he take her concession between his lips. 

 _ _ _ 

The February rain chimes against the aluminum of their car, stirring them from their satiated stupor. Leaning spent by the window with Scully curled against his chest, Mulder clears the glass of their fog. It was a starless night, save one – that constant one due north. 

“Come on, Mulder. Let’s go back to the motel for a hot shower. There won’t be any werewolves… Not tonight anyways. You can’t even see the full moon behind those heavy clouds.” 

“I kind of like it here, Scully.” 

“In the middle of rural Wyoming?” 

“For some reason, it feels like home.” 

“You nearly broke your neck installing that satellite dish, unsuccessfully, at our house in semi-rural Virginia. And then cracked our TV with the remote when you missed the NBA playoffs. I don’t think you’ll survive a week out here in nowhere,” she combs the thatch of hair over his heart in appeasement. 

“I always liked the look of farmhouses and big open spaces. The East feels too claustrophobic with all the eyes and ears on us. I’m sick of all of that, all of Them…” 

He fantasizes about a time when he could have given her the life she always deserved. There wouldn’t be a post-abduction, post-Melissa, post-cancer, post-Emily, post-William… Her life wouldn’t be a series of post-mortems, digging for that truth of his and making it theirs. That truth that continues to bury them remains immutable, but he thinks perhaps there was a time when he could have let her have life instead of death. 

The rain makes him think of that young girl in an Oregon graveyard several lifetimes ago whose wonder matched her skepticism. Whose wild laugh still echoes through his ears from time to time. He missed that girl with her brimming future, but the woman in his arms now would tell him that she would have ended up here anyways. That long before she met him she chose pathology over obstetrics. 

His Scully – always the healer, his healer. 

“I know what you mean,” Scully murmurs after a long silence. She snuggles even closer to him, “Out here, we’re free.” 

“We’re together,” he says gazing down at her. “Home is only where you are. Where we are.” 

“You’re just trying to get in my pants again.” 

“Well… they  _are_  already off,” he smirks. 

He flips her over and they manage to fold themselves into a comfortable enough position in this old Ford Taurus. As he penetrates her again, Mulder realizes he was wrong. Not shapeshifting, not sunflower seeds – but Scully, gripping his life force with her unlikely strength, is all he needs to survive. The persistence of life always finds a way. And so will they. 

Monsters in the dark be damned. They can all wait a little longer. 

Just one more night longer.

 

**Author's Note:**

> ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Thank you to perplexistan for her encouragement of a daydream. And to all the amazing Philes on Tumblr who keep this love of ours alive.


End file.
